The chart above for the Apple Tablet, is NOT based on the mythical “unnamed source whom has always been right in the past” but rather is based on looking at available components and what has already been done with the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd Gen. The following paragraphs go over each line in the chart and the reasoning for the specs shown. For those not familiar with my background – I spent 16 years in the electronics component industry as a Design Engineer, Engineering Manager, Product Manager, and VP of Sales and Marketing. One of the companies I worked for was a supplier to Apple as well as Motorola and Nokia.

Display: There has been a lot of rumors and speculation on the size of the display for the Tablet. Conventional wisdom / rumors have settled in on either “between 10 to 11 inches” (10.1” or 10.6”) or 7 inches (7.1”). Given in the past how conventional wisdom like this has proven to miss the mark almost every time – I am going in between the two sizes and that means the standard LCD size of 8.9 inches. I will take it one step further and say it is a TFT display not OLED – this due to cost considerations.

Screen Resolution: Assuming that Apple really wants to make the Tablet a world class video play back device – that means HD, which means 720p. The Toshiba LTD089EXWS fits the bill nicely with 1280 x 768 resolution making for 720p playback. No I don’t see them offering the 1080p resolution – I think price and power consumption issues will make the LTD089EXWS or another LCD with similar specs the best trade off.

Size: The Size of the display is going to be the biggest contributor to the size of the unit. If we go with the same amount of area above and below the screen per the iPod touch and just a little more size on the edge for ease of holding we come up with 256.4 x 137.3 mm for L x W. We will also assume that Steve dictated the Tablet be less than half an inch in thickness – so the 12.3 mm (0.48”) dimension of the 3GS makes sense for the tablet as well. The larger the volumetric area in the Tablet the more room for the custom battery.

Weight: This is simply taking the ratio of L x W of the 3GS and the speculated dimension of the Tablet and then applying that to the weight of the 3GS to come up with the weight of the Tablet. This works out to be 662 Grams or 1 pound and 7.3 ounces, which just so happens to come in under a believable 1 1/2 pound Steve requirement.

Battery: One component that 100% will not be off the shelf is the battery. Apple likes to maximize battery size by creating custom batteries that fit in all the empty space. Based on the size difference between the 3GS and the Tablet it is easy to see how they could get to the 5,700 mAh size. You can forget about the battery being removable – just look to the Mac Book, Mac Book Air, Mac Book Pro, 3GS and iPod Touch for a “hint” on what Apple thinks about removable batteries these days. Actually the 5,700 mAh is conservatively low. If they go with more of an iPhone 2G type case design they could easily fit in a 7,100 mAh battery.

Video Playback: 12 hours may actually be conservatively low on this. When you consider that the 13” Mac Book Pro has a battery size of 5450 mAh, which is smaller than the 5,700 mAh projected for the Tablet. Granted it also only offers 7 hours of life – but it has a lot larger LCD and more power hungry processor than would be needed for the tablet. But a 12 hour playback for Video / constant use – seems to be a nice marketing point and could be one of the initial design goals.

Storage: I only see them offering one version of the Tablet to start and that would be the 64 GB version. I put in an asterisk for this as once the new Toshiba 64 GB NAND modules are ready for full production in Late Q1 2010 – then Apple could switch to a 128 GB version. Again staying with just one offering. But right now with an either Feb or March launch of the Tablet – it does not look good for a 128 GB version. Most likely that would be in the June / July time frame. Now given Apples use and influence when it comes to NAND it is very possible Toshiba’s announcement of production availability is for everyone other than Apple and for Apple they are already in production mode – in which case the Tablet will be at 128 GB of storage goodness.

SD Slot: This one I bet Apple went back and forth on. I could see Steve rejecting this idea multiple times before coming to the reluctant agreement that people will use the Tablet different than a Touch or iPhone. It will be in many cases their primary computer and being able to import directly in your photos and movies – is a big plus for the end user. So at the end of the day I think a brave product manager will have won out and convinced Steve to add the SD slot. But not before two or three other “brave” product managers were fired for pushing their points.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support: Probably one of the last things added into the firmware / OS would be support for a Bluetooth keyboard. Going under the assumption there is an SD slot, this would show that Apple sees the Tablet as more of a netbook competitor than an iPod Touch replacement. Given that you can already use a Bluetooth keyboard with a jailbroken App for the 3GS and Touch – it is not a technical issue – this is a marketing / Steve issue. Of all the items on the list, this is the one I have the least confidence in.

OS: This time I am going with conventional wisdom and saying that the Tablet OS will be an enhanced version of the iPhone OS. This will allow for compatibility of iPhone apps, plus offer some special features for the larger screen of the Tablet. I do not see the Tablet running Mac OS X as I think the devices sweet spot is email, web surfing and rich media playback – you know all the things the iPhone OS does so well. Not Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Garageband – you know all the things the OS X does so well.

Price: I know many are calling / hoping for a $500 to $700 device. I just don’t see that working economically for Apple. The $799 price is the lowest I could get to considering the price points currently for an unsubsidized 3GS and the added cost of the larger LCD with the better resolution. Anything less than $799 and the Bluetooth Keyboard support and SD slot go away. As then the device would be too full featured and could / would eat into sales of the Mac Book and Mac Book Pro.

Yes these predictions are a little different than those put forth by “unnamed sources” and analyst de jour. But the issue with the oft-quoted analysts that just have a degree in finance is they don’t know the difference between Ohms Law and Megan’s Law and that often shows in their predictions. That all said it will be fun to compare the chart above with the actual specs once the Apple Tablet is released.

Update - 12/15/09 - Upload of Contacts is now optional in v1.1. "What's new in Version 1.1.0 - Contact name upload now optional. Ability to delete previously uploaded contact names from server" Both big additions. However I still would like to see them either instantly delete or give the option to delete past recordings and transcripts. Again nice step forward just need a little more before I would use. But that is just me.

I have seen a few blog posts on a new App that does Voice to Text dictation on the iPhone, is supposed to work great and is free. I even had a few people call / email in with reviews. I thought wow what a great App I need to get this. The App in question is Dragon Dictation from Nuance Communictions - Link to App store Page

After installing, the first time I launched the App I was greated with the mother of all End User License Agreements (EULA) - at least as far as iPhone Apps go. At the bottom of the screen was a very big green button - which in my opinion is way to easy to accidently hit - so I copied over the information to make it easier for me and you to review before agreeing to the EULA.

The section that will be the most concern to users and those in their contact list is section 3.3 - which states:

"As part of the Service, Nuance collects and uses: (1) the names of individuals and companies that appear in your address book in order to improve the quality of the Service when you speak a contact name in using the Service"

That by itself for many is game over. Do you really want to give up your friends and business associates for a free app? However later in that section they follow on with:

...such information shall only be used by Nuance or third parties acting under the direction of Nuance pursuant to confidentiality agreements as identified above. Nuance will not: (a) use the names of individuals and companies that appear in your address book to contact anyone for any reason, or (b) use the information elements in of any Speech Data for any purposes except as set forth above.

Which does sound better when that is added in. Howerver the next line is what was the deal breaker for me:

Any and all information that you provide will remain confidential and may also be disclosed by Nuance to your wireless carrier, if so requested, or to meet legal or regulatory requirements, such as under a court order or to a government institution if required or authorized by law...“Speech Data” means the audio files, associated transcriptions and log files provided by you hereunder or generated in connection with the Service.

Sorry game over - I don't care how good the service is - I just can't justify giving up my contact information for a free iPhone App no matter how good it is. When you go to the iTunes page for the App the reviews are split between 1 star for those parnoid consipiracy theorists like myself and 5 stars by those that live in a happy pretty butterfly world with shiny unicorns and don't care about privacy issues and are just looking for a good - free - dictation app.

Hopefully Nuance will change their EULA and remove the requirement to upload contacts and will also immediately delete all recordings after transcription and delete the transcriptions as well. When that happens I will gladly try out the app. Might even be willing to pay for it. But right now my friends can sleep easy knowing I did not sell them out for a free iPhone App.

Here is the End user Agreement for Dragon Dictation so you can decide for yourself before downloading:

THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU (THE INDIVIDUAL OR THE ENTITY USING THE DRAGON DICTATION SOFTWARE AND SERVICE) AND NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS INC., ("NUANCE"). PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS CAREFULLY.

YOU MUST AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS DRAGON DICTATION END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (“AGREEMENT”) IN ORDER TO INSTALL AND USE THE SOFTWARE WITH THE DRAGON DICTATION SERVICE. BY CLICKING ON THE “ACCEPT” BUTTON, OR BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. YOU MAY NOT INSTALL OR USE THE SOFTWARE OR THE NUANCE SERVICE IN ANY WAY UNLESS YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

Dragon Dictation is a client/server application, currently available only in the United States, that permits users of devices to control certain operations of such devices via spoken commands, including, but not limited to, the ability to at least create text and email messages . The following general terms and conditions govern your use of the Dragon dictation applications (“Service”) and permit you to download, install and use the client software (“Software”) and accompanying documentation provided by Nuance for accessing the Service.

1. LICENSE GRANT. Nuance grants you (the "Licensee"), a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable limited license, in object code form only, to install and use the Software on a single Device to access the Service only in the United States. A “Device” is any authorized Apple® iPhone®. You acknowledge and agree that the Software will use your wireless network to send and receive data, and that your mobile operator may bill you airtime, data and/or usage fees.

2. LICENSEE OBLIGATIONS.

2.1 RESTRICTIONS. You may not: (a) submit any automated or recorded queries to the Service unless otherwise approved in writing by Nuance; (b) use the Service for commercial use; (c) access the Service with software or means other than the Software; (d) copy, reproduce, distribute, or in any other manner duplicate the Software, in whole or in part; (e) sell, lease, license, sublicense, distribute, assign, transfer or otherwise grant any rights in the Software, in whole or in part; (f) modify, port, translate, or create derivative works of the Software; (g) decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to derive, reconstruct, identify or discover any source code, underlying ideas, or algorithms, of the Software or the Service by any means; (h) remove any proprietary notices, labels or marks from the Software; or (i) use the Service for purposes of comparison with or benchmarking against products or services made available by third parties.

3. PROPRIETARY RIGHTS.

3.1 SOFTWARE AND SERVICE. Nuance and its licensors own all right, title, and interest in the Software and Service including, but not limited to, all patent, copyright, trade secret, trademark and other intellectual property rights associated therewith, and title to all such rights shall remain solely in Nuance and/or its licensors. Unauthorized copying of the Software or Service, or failure to comply with the above restrictions, will result in automatic termination of this Agreement and all licenses granted hereunder, and will make available to Nuance all legal and equitable remedies for breach thereof.

3.3. NAMES AND SPEECH DATA. As part of the Service, Nuance collects and uses: (1) the names of individuals and companies that appear in your address book in order to improve the quality of the Service when you speak a contact name in using the Service, and (2) Speech Data, as defined below, to tune, enhance and improve the speech recognition and other components of the Service, and other Nuance services and products. You acknowledge and agree that Nuance may collect the names of individuals and companies that appear in your address book and the Speech Data as part of the Service and that such information shall only be used by Nuance or third parties acting under the direction of Nuance pursuant to confidentiality agreements as identified above. Nuance will not: (a) use the names of individuals and companies that appear in your address book to contact anyone for any reason, or (b) use the information elements in of any Speech Data for any purposes except as set forth above. Any and all information that you provide will remain confidential and may also be disclosed by Nuance to your wireless carrier, if so requested, or to meet legal or regulatory requirements, such as under a court order or to a government institution if required or authorized by law, or in the event of a sale, merger or acquisition of Nuance by another entity. “Speech Data” means the audio files, associated transcriptions and log files provided by you hereunder or generated in connection with the Service.

4. SUPPORT. To facilitate the process of evaluating and testing the Service and Software, Licensee may refer to Nuance frequently asked questions at: http://www.dragonmobileapps.com. For additional support, Licensee may request such support via the foregoing website, and upon Nuance personnel availability, Nuance may provide reasonable support services through fax, email or other means to Licensee with regards to defect and/or clarification of functions and features of the Software and Service. Nuance Support is available during Nuance’s normal business hours, Mondays through Fridays, 8:00a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST (excluding legal and company holidays).

5. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT NUANCE IS PROVIDING THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICE TO YOU SOLELY TO PERMIT YOU TO EVALUATE AND USE THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICE. CONSEQUENTLY, YOU AGREE TO TAKE ALL PRECAUTIONS AND SAFEGUARDS NECESSARY TO PROTECT YOUR DATA AND SYSTEMS FROM LOSS OR DAMAGE. NUANCE PROVIDES THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICE “AS IS,” WITH ALL FAULTS, AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, NUANCE SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

6. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL NUANCE, ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, AND EMPLOYEES, OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF USE, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, OR COST OF COVER, ARISING FROM THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE, HOWEVER CAUSED, UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES IN ADVANCE.

7. TERM; TERMINATION. This Agreement begins on the earlier of your acceptance of the terms and conditions of this Agreement or once you download the Software and expires upon termination. Nuance may terminate this Agreement, and the license granted hereunder, at any time in its sole discretion, with or without cause, by notifying you that the service has expired or has been terminated. This Agreement shall terminate automatically upon the breach of any of its terms and conditions by you. Upon termination, you shall immediately stop use of and shall delete all copies of the Software.

8. EXPORT COMPLIANCE. You represent and warrant that (i) you are not located in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo, or that has been designated by the U.S. Government as a “terrorist supporting” country; and (ii) you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

9. U.S. GOVERNMENT END USERS. The Software is a "commercial item," as that term is defined in 48 C.F.R. 2.101, consisting of "commercial computer software" and "commercial computer software documentation," as such terms are used in 48 C.F.R. 12.212. Consistent with 48 C.F.R. 12.212 and 48 C.F.R. 227.7202-1 through 227.7202-4, all U.S. Government end users acquire the Software with only those rights set forth herein.

10. TRADEMARKS. Third-party trademarks, trade names, product names and logos (the "Trademarks") contained in or used by the Software or Service are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners, and the use of such Trademarks shall inure to the benefit of the trademark owner. The use of such Trademarks is intended to denote interoperability and does not constitute: (i) an affiliation by Nuance with such company, or (ii) an endorsement or approval of such company of Nuance and its products or services.

11. GENERAL LEGAL TERMS. This agreement shall be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States of America, without regard to its conflicts of laws principles, and you hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal and state courts in said Commonwealth in connection with any dispute arising out of this Agreement. This Agreement shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, the application of which is hereby expressly excluded. This Agreement is the entire agreement between Nuance and you and supersedes any other communications or advertising with respect to the Software. If any provision of this Agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be revised to the extent necessary to cure the invalidity or unenforceability, and the remainder of this Agreement shall continue in full force and effect. The failure of Nuance to exercise or enforce any right or provision of this Agreement shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. Sections 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 10 of this Agreement shall survive the expiration or termination of this Agreement.

Here are stories sent in from Listeners that tried the Droid and found it to be less (a lot less) than marketed. So before making a change you will want to read these stories. There is also this post from Stewart Alsop.

I will add more of these Droid Fail stories as they come in.

Rob,

Before I start - I am a technology junkie - especially when it comes to the "newest & greatest" cell phones! My friends and family laugh at me - because I am constantly upgrading my phone.

We have a Verizon contract (with 3 lines of service) as well as an AT&T contract (with 2 lines of service). I recently did some research comparing AT&T's plans vs Verizon's plans (voice AND data) and I decided it was more cost effective (especially when taking into account the cancellation fees for each contract) to keep the 3 Verizon lines, and cancel the AT&T contract. Besides - who really needs 2 cell phones?

WHAT A MISTAKE!!!

I canceled my AT&T contracts the day the Droid was released. I was up early that day - and the Verizon store I went to - did have a line of people - waiting for the Droid - but the line of people (maybe 35?) ABSOLUTELY did not compare to the line at the AT&T store on the day of the IPhone 2G & IPhone 3G launch. (No one sleeping overnight in front of the store inhaling someone's car fumes - a throwback to your experience in line for your IPhone - I love that story!)

The HTC Droid - from initial comparison looked crisper than the IPhone. However, after further testing/use - it was HORRIBLE! We had SO many issues with the Droid - they were returned to the Verizon store 1 week after we purchased them.

These were the main issues we had:1. The Droid would not voicedial from our Bluetooth headset2. The Droid would not sync with our yahoo email accounts (hmmm ... google not syncing with their competitor yahoo - is that really a "missed kink" in the product?) :)3. The App store SUCKS! Not user friendly AT ALL! I definitely prefer using Itunes on my PC to browse through the Apps.4. The Droid is overly sensitive and would randomly dial people in our contact book5. The calendar is VERY limited - granted I was finally able to sync it to my Outlook contacts/calendar - but the calendar fields were very limited - and half of my text did not appear for my activities - you know - the important stuff would be missing - half of the address, etc. HORRIBLE!

Unfortunately - the fact still remained that we didn't want to pay 2 cell phone bills each month - so we're still stuck with Verizon until our contracts run out - so I had to exchange the Droids for the Blackberry Storm 2 - not much better than the Droids ...

I hope this helps your listeners before switching out of AT&T to Verizon. Luckily - we can still use our IPhones as IPod touches @ home since we have WIFI.

Thanks for the great show! I love it! I've listened from episode 1!

RobinClinton Township, MI

Hi Rob,

I was just listening to Podcast number 102 through your Tii app - I know, I'm behind. This is because I spent the last 2 weeks on the Android platform. I've been having so much trouble with my iPhone dropping calls, and since my cell phone is my only phone, I finally ditched the iPhone and tried out the Motorola Droid. That began quite the saga - as a jailbroken iPhone user, the bar is set pretty high on phones. I used the Droid for a week before returning it. As expected, it was quite buggy - this I could have lived with while the kinks are worked out. What surprised me is that all the customization that people talk about on Android is, well, true. But in order to achieve that customization, you have to download apps. It's not built into the OS. How do you find out about these customizations? Good question. The search function on the Android Market is incredibly BAD. Seriously, this is Google? I would read about an app on the web, search for it in the Market and come up empty - 80% of the time. On the forums people would be talking about using an app, and there would be multiple responses about people being unable to locate it in the market. It's so bad, that the platform uses bar coding to locate apps - this is the standard for posting links to apps in Android - because it's impossible to search by Keyword or even Title. What's perplexing is that some people could find the apps, others couldn't using the exact same search terms.

In the end I returned the Droid because I couldn't stand the form factor. I'm a mom, I was afraid I'd drop the thing on my baby's head and she'd get a concussion. The thing is a brick. And while I wanted a physical keyboard, I can type faster on the iPhone's keyboard than on the physical Droid keyboard. Just not feeling the love there. I tried out the HTC Eris next - this introduced me to all kinds of issues with Android. You know how the commercials say that Droid can multi-task while the iPhone can't? My jailbroken iPhone of course could, but on Android, you don't get a choice about multitasking. There are no kill buttons in the apps. So to leave a program you press the home key and it continues to operate in the background. If you're like me, jumping between programs fairly often, you'll have 10-12 apps running in the background at all times. No worries though, there's an app for that - lots of them. So you download a task killer and when you run it shows you all the apps open at the time. You can check off the ones you want to kill at that moment in time - of course, you want to be careful not to check off things like the keyboard, the OS, the battery meter, you know, little "applications" like that. As a kicker though, I learned that the task killer was draining my battery - I was only able to get 2-4 hours of battery on my phone. There's a handy little setting that you can look at to see if your phone sleeps - my consistently said I was at 80-100% awake. Sitting on my desk looking very innocuous and the damn thing's still running. I found that my battery life was dramatically better if I used the phone than if I left it sitting.

In the end I returned the Eris too, and dragged my sorry butt back to AT&T. They took me and my money back. A part of me is disappointed that the open platform that Android offers is not really in the same universe as the iPhone. It would be nice to have another platform to challenge and spur development on the iPhone. What blows my mind though, is the advertising that's going on and why Apple isn't exploiting the fact that the Android OS is half-baked at best.

Anyway, thought you might be interested in my experience. If you know anyone who is thinking of switching, tell them I said that making phone calls that don't drop is over-rated. Nothing can match the iPhone experience.